All posts tagged ‘Beacon’

There are a few ways to turn your phone into a remote control — an instantly appealing idea since most of us lose our phones far less often than we lose the remote. The Griffin Beacon makes it both relatively cheap and quite easy to do so for your entire home theater setup with either an Android or iOS phone or tablet.

To use the Beacon with iOS, you just download the Dijit remote app from the iTunes store (free) and connect your device through Bluetooth. The Beacon itself looks like some kind of modern art sculpture from a Japanese garden. The base looks like your average black entertainment device, less than 4″ square, but atop it sits a shiny, red-black, rounded rock. You press the rock down until its blue light flashes, which indicates its connection to your device.

Image source: Dijit

The setup is similar for Android devices (any running version 2.3.3 or later). You download Digit from the Google Play store instead, of course. Ratings are better for the iOS version–some Android reviewers have had trouble with the Bluetooth connection and setup. Like many apps, it either worked perfectly or not well at all, earning mostly reviews on each end of the spectrum.

My Beacon had no trouble finding most of my devices in its list of hundreds of thousands, and the one that it didn’t find was easy to set up through prompts for selecting make and device type.

The Beacon connects over Bluetooth, which on some phones can be more of a battery drain than on others. Know your phone and know whether you should keep the plug (or spare battery) nearby. As for the Beacon itself, Griffin says that you should get eight weeks of battery life. I got significantly less than that, and other users have reported similar problems. When you’re used to a couple of AA batteries lasting in your TV remote forever, that can be annoying, and the Beacon doesn’t have an AC adapter. (Of course, some enterprising users have figured out how to make one.) Just remember to keep rechargeables handy. You almost certainly have enough other devices that need them as well!

The actual remote portion of the Dijit app is not a thing of great beauty, but it is functional, and in the end, that’s what matters. There are simple choices for your remote, and you can adapt them to your personal choices by adding or deleting buttons.

Once you’ve got it all set up, you’re ready to use your one-stop remote control. You can add a television guide that will help manage your channels and DVRs by entering your ZIP code and selecting the correct broadcast provider.

Overall, I have had a positive experience with the Beacon and the Dijit app. Setup was easy, and it works well at what it is meant to do. That said, others have reported significantly more trouble. Amazon reviews are occasionally ecstatic (presumably people who had the success I did) with a lot of one-star reviews, most of which have to do with the battery-eating and some who had trouble with Dijit. If you’re willing to deal with regular battery changes and are looking for an attractive universal remote solution, I recommend giving it a try.

The Griffin Beacon lists for $79.99 but as of this writing is available on Amazon for $38.35 for iOS devices or $41.96 for Android:

I had a great time playing in all of the interactive stations at Samsung’s Galaxy S III phone launch in Manhattan last week. The phone’s ability to share contacts, files, and photos (though only with other Galaxy S III owners) through back-to-back tap or shared Wi-Fi Direct connection is a neat new feature that I could envision using often. Additionally, as someone who uses my cell phone for reading and video viewing more than for phone calls these days, I’ve got to say: this phone’s 4.8″ screen is truly a sight for sore, tired eyes. After spending the last week with a complimentary Galaxy S III, I find that I am willing to adjust to this phone’s larger “footprint” because I so passionately prefer its larger screen over my iPhone 3G’s 3.5″ display.

“It’s straddling that line between phone and phablet!” I tell my husband happily as my fingers dance over the phone’s screen, rooting out infinite pull-down menus…

However, as I walked the floor of the Samsung event, I soon realized that the most noteworthy new feature of the Galaxy S III was not its’ “Smart Stay” display, 20-picture “Burst Shot” photo function, or myriadcontent-sharingoptions. After all, if these features become popular enough, they will be incorporated in due course into the phones of Samsung’s competitors. Ultimately, I sensed that the real benefit of owning a Galaxy S III phone was going to be its’ ability to access unique, free content–music, videos, television shows, and books–via new, interactive “Share to Go” posters and kiosks that will be springing up in airports, bus stops, and train stations in cities across the United States, beginning this summer.

These posters and kiosks will take advantage of the Galaxy S III’s Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. Getting ready for a cross-country flight? On your way to your plane’s boarding gate, you can stop by a “Share to Go” kiosk long enough to tap your phone on an image of that new novel you’ve been hearing about–the novel will download onto your phone in seconds and you can send off one last text message to the family while you’re waiting. Want some new music for your subway ride? Wave your phone at the “Share to Go” interactive poster on the wall as you’re hurrying through your train station. If you’ve previously unlocked your phone and turned on the NFC, your new song will download in seconds onto your device, even as you continue walking.

Will this walled garden of unique content be enough to lure customers away from Samsung’s competitors? Time will tell. Still, I have to hand it to Samsung for jet-pack style and space-age delivery: these kiosks and posters are such a cool idea–I really do hope that they succeed!